Page 15 of Unforgettable

6

Matthew

All-day long,I’ve been a wreck. Ten minutes after Rose left with Daniels, I had Slade on the phone. I never should’ve let her fucking leave. It took every single ounce of self-control I have to keep me from going and collecting her the moment Slade said she left the apartment complex. It might be over-the-top to have a security detail on her, but I can’t let her slip away again. I still can’t believe after all these years, she managed to end up in my club.

What are the chances that Rose would end up here in New York City, far from where we’re from, and in my BDSM club? If I believed in fate, I would say it had a hand in orchestrating the whole thing. I spent years searching for the Grants and Rose, but they disappeared like dust in the wind.

It was during my search for Rose that I met Slade and Kisten.

Slade is ex-military, who took a special interest in putting a stop to human trafficking. On one of his many covert operations, he stumbled upon one of the biggest human trafficking rings in Russia. Using his cover as one of the bad guys, he purchased one of the girls being sold. He couldn’t save them all, but he could save her. Once his mission was over, he went back to save the rest, but someone had gotten wind of what was coming, and the traffickers had killed all of the girls and abandoned the warehouse.

Kisten’s history isn’t a pretty one. He was born on the wrong side of the tracks to a drug dealer and a crack whore. He was on the streets by the age of fifteen. He did a lot of bad shit just to survive.

I think the only people more shocked by Rose’s appearance are Kisten and Slade. Three years after the Grants disappeared with Rose, I was able to track down Marcia Grant. Unfortunately, it was in the Chicago morgue that I found her. Dead means she couldn’t answer my questions. That was the last lead I got.

When Slade confirmed she had wandered the streets for hours before taking shelter from the rain in a café, I knew she had nowhere to go. Why the fuck didn’t she tell me? Did she honestly think I wouldn’t help her?

Her too skinny body trembles against my side. “Cold?”

“A little,” she meekly responds.

I pull her into my lap and wrap my coat around her, cocooning her in my arms against my body. She turns her head and presses her cold face against the warmth of my neck. I suck in a breath of shock at the chill.

“Cold?” She asks with a hint of a smile in her voice.

I can’t hold back my laughter. God, this woman holds everything good in the world, and she doesn’t even know it. I sink back into the soft leather seat and relish the feeling of her body against mine.

Ten long years of waiting, and I finally have my girl in my arms again. Only, she doesn’t seem to remember me. It pains me to no end knowing that my Rose forgot me. Forgot our young love that blossomed despite, or maybe because of, the hell we lived in. It’s taken all of my self-control, and some borrowed from Kisten and Slade, to keep me from bringing up our past.

Slade was the one who talked me down that first night after Rose had to be sedated. He’s right, though. I have no idea what she’s been through all these years we’ve been apart. The fact that she was with Damon tells me that things weren’t good for her. Damon isn’t just some innocent bystander that took advantage of a young woman desperate for money.

No, he’s the only son to Dominic Savada, the head of the Savada Family—the mob. His father is no angel, but Damon makes his father look like a fucking saint. Damon is a sadistic fuck whose moral compass points straight toward Hell. It didn’t take me long to piece together that Rose sold herself to Damon in exchange for a new identity. She’s on the run from someone, and pure desperation sent her straight into the lion’s den.

I want to reassure her that nothing is going to hurt her ever again. I want to help her with whatever troubles her. Protect her from whatever she’s running from, but I’m taking my friends advice and letting Rose set the pace.

Both Dr. Martinez and Slade are convinced that Rose has post-traumatic stress disorder, which can mean that she’s blocked out or suppressed memories as a coping mechanism. Maybe I latched onto that as an explanation for how she could forget about me because it hurt too damn much to think that those months we spent together meant so little to her that she was able to forget all about me. No matter the reason, she’s obviously in a fragile state of mind, and I won’t be the cause of further stress. Either she will remember me in her own time, or I will just have to be satisfied with whatever is in store for us in the future. She doesn’t know it yet, but I’m her future. She fell in love with me once, I just have to make her love me again. Thank God, I’m a stubborn fuck who doesn’t back down from a challenge. When I see something I want, I go after it with a single-minded focus.

One way or another, I’m going to get my Rosie back, and then I’m going to spend every day for the rest of my life loving her.

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